Linda Wells to Receive the Fragrance Foundation Hall of Fame Award

This evening, Allure's own Linda Wells will be presented with the Fragrance Foundation's Hall of Fame award—the first editor in chief to receive the honor since its inception in 1974. Yes, it's a rare and exciting distinction, but it's also a pretty fitting one, considering Wells's longtime love affair with fragrance.

"My first fragrance memory is of my mother giving me a good-night kiss before she left to go out on the town—all the magic and mystery in that moment," she says. In elementary school, Wells received her very own bottle of Tinkerbell, and since then she has sampled hundreds of scents. Her personal favorites tend to be "complicated [scents] with rich notes like woods and amber," but she is a self-described perfume "polygamist," willing to try anything. Wells insists that the fragrance stories that appear in Allure are accessible but still evocative, steering clear of "flamboyant language" and distilling perfume down to its true essence: a source of pleasure. "Scent is so connected to the mind and memory, but it's also unavoidable and invisible. Scent can overwhelm you with feeling. It is so provocative and so difficult to contain," says Wells. Turning something invisible into something accessible is no easy task, but then that's why she's getting an award. Congratulations, Linda!

Actress Connie Britton will present Wells with the honor tonight at the Fragrance Foundation Awards (better known as the Fifis) at Alice Tully Hall in New York City. You can check out Allure's Instagram for our editors' live shots from the event.